Celebrate photography at Franklin Crossing, work by Karen Bandy, Vision of Hope at Oxford, Rules of Civility at Quilt Works, emerging artists at Red Chair, pastels at Sage Framing and nature at Tumalo.

 

First Friday Artwalk April 6, 5-8pm celebration.

 1. Bella Moda 2. Cascade School of Music 3. City Hall 4. Douglas Fine Jewelry5. Franklin Crossing’s Art in the Atrium 6. Karen Bandy Studio 7. Lubbesmeyer Studio & Gallery 8. The Oxford 9. Red Chair Gallery 10. Sage Custom Framing & Gallery 11. Thump Coffee 12. Tumalo Art Co.

 

Art in the Atrium at Franklin Crossing 550 NW Franklin, celebrates with photography by Christian Heeb and Rick Samco and works by gallery artists.
Renowned international artist/photographer Christian Heeb, working with a major German publication, created a series of Asian images during a prolonged trip through Thailand, Personal pursuits led him to photograph historical shrines featuring elegant ancient sculptures of the Buddha.  The artist later crafted the Buddha images into a series printed onto metal, lending an iconographic edge to the stunning work appearing in the exhibition.
A professional photographer for 25 years, Heeb has traveled extensively throughout the world with his wife Regula for book and magazine publishers.  He is known worldwide for his images of Native Americans and landscapes appearing in over 140 large format books and countless other publications.
The Heebs, residing in Bend for 14 years while maintaining international careers, organize photo tours and workshops throughout the globe. They recently opened the Cascade Center of Photography, a studio, gallery and photography workshop center on Columbia Street. Other images can be seen at www.heebphoto.com.
Rick Samco shows photography of his three-week trek featuring monasteries, monks & other images from the Mt. Everest region. Arriving in Katmandu, then traveling by bus and two days trekking at high altitude, the party arrived at the village of their Sherpa guide to the base of Lhotse Mountain and Mr. Everest. Choosing the trek to experience the Himalayas, the photographer was more taken by the Sherpa people, their Buddhist culture and remarkable openness and happiness while living under extreme physical conditions. In college, the artist developed strong skills in photography.  Later, his computer industry profession, with the founding of two large Oregon software companies including Mentor Graphics, and family life resulted in a 40-year hiatus from serious photography.
Upon retirement in Bend, Samco rekindled his early passion for photography, coupling it with his love of travel and the outdoors. Photography’s digital evolution complements his computer technology interest and experience.
Appearing are other artists frequently featured in exhibitions organized by Billye Turner, art consultant.  
Ceylon Blue, located in Franklin Crossing, will serve appetizers and the popular Tommy Leroy Trio performs jazz with Andy Armor, piano, George Bouhey, drums, and Tom Freedman, bass.  Turner provides additional information at 541-382-9398.   

Atelier 6000 389 SW Scalehouse Ct. Suite 120.  541-330-8759, www.atelier6000.com.  2012 marks the 42nd anniversary of Earth Day as a national event, and it is Atelier 6000’s intention is to celebrate the day all month long. Earth month is celebrated every year in a variety of ways, through tree plantings, beach cleanups, community recycling drives, and many more eco-inspired gatherings. With a hope to inspire environmental awareness, Atelier 6000 presents Upcycled Art.
The juried Upcycled Art Exhibition attracted over 50 submissions from five states and Canada.  Submissions include inspiring and distinctive two and three-dimensional works reflecting the artist’s view of good usable design and real beauty. Taken to new heights in upcycled art, Atelier 6000 exhibition promotes the notion of reprocessing and conservation in a uniquely sophisticated presentation. The exhibition includes jewelry, sculpture, mobiles, printmaking, book arts and more.
Art enthusiasts and the ecologically conscious alike will enjoy art creations made from substances that once existed in different form.

Bend City Walls at City Hall Exhibition 710 NW Wall Street. 541-388-5517 City of Bend Arts, Beautification & Culture Commission, INSIDE::OUT Art Show Opens at Bend City Hall. Fourteen artists were paired with The Environmental Center and its members to interpret the theme “Bend’s external environment inspires our internal environment (mental, physical, emotional & spiritual).” www.ci.bend.or.us/city_walls_at_hall.html

Cascade School of Music 200 NW Pacific Park Lane, on the Deschutes River, just upstream from the Portland Ave. Bridge. 541-382-6866. First Friday Parents’ Night Out…call to hold your spot. Kids age 4 to 12 enjoy supervised art and music-related activities, then end the evening with a musically-inspired, age-appropriate movie (complete with popcorn).

Desperado Contemporary & Nostalgic Western Store 330 SW Powerhouse, Old Mill District. 541-749-9980. Barbara Slater exhibits fanciful and endearing animals including elegant roosters, soulful horses, beloved dogs and other creatures. Her affection of them and her skillful grasp of their nature is apparent in the imagery. “Animals bring something special to our lives and give us inspiration for paintings that we all treasure,” she says. Slater’s paintings are an ongoing exhibit at Desperado at the Old Mill.

Douglas Jewelry Saint Clair Place on Minnesota St. #106, 541-389-2901, www.DouglasJewelry.com. Featuring Lynne Magnuson whose current body of work represents further development of her longtime interest in figurative expression.  

High Desert Gallery 10 NW Minnesota St. at Lava at the Oxford Hotel. 541-388-8964, www.highdesertgallery.com.  Mardi Wood thru April 11. A Story… exhibition is featured. Wood’s ceramic work is the result of a process developed over many years of making. The balance and subtle weight of each piece have been created by fine adjustments made at every step of construction. Inspired by her roots in the Northwest and her family home on the Columbia River, Woods’ vessels are painted with layers of glaze and oxides built up during repeated firings.

John Paul Designs 1006 NW Bond St., 541-318-5645. Custom Jewelry + Signature Series. Specializing in unique, one of a kind wedding and engagement rings in a variety of metals. www.johnpauldesigns.com.

Karen Bandy Design Jeweler 25 NW Minnesota Ave. #5, 541-388-0155. Two venues for April and May. One show of her jewelry and paintings is at her studio at 25 NW Minnesota Ave, with open house April 6 and the other showing is at North Rim Lodge at 1500 Wild Rye Circle. The Lodge is open weekdays from 1-5pm and by appointment. Many special events are planned for North Rim Lodge including a special May celebration of Karen Bandy’s 25th Anniversary in business.
Bandy’s paintings are vibrantly colored, abstract depictions of landscapes, city scenes and journeys, yet each one is inspired by her jewelry designs. Viewers will see how color and line and shape all relate to her jewelry. Bandy says, “whether conscious or not, my paintings relate to my jewelry. People always comment about the vivid use of color. They say they can tell I am inspired by rubies, citrine, garnet and blue sapphire, among others.”
Bandy has created a special hand-carved horse pendant, accented with peridot and Australian keshi pearl in 18ky gold just for this 25th anniversary event. 100 percent of funds raised through raffle ticket sales will be given in full to Healing Reins and J Bar J. Tickets are $10 each or 6 for $50. www.karenbandy.com or karen@karenbandy.com.

Lahaina Galleries at the Old Mill 541-388-4404, www.lahainagalleries.com.  For Feating local artists Katherine Taylor (impressionist), Mollie Jurgenson (mixed-media abstract, Mytchell Mead (metal sculpture) and Jason Waldron (high desert/Manzanita wood sculpture).

Lubbesmeyer Studio & Gallery  The Old Mill District, 2nd Story Loft, 541-330-0840, www.lubbesmeyer.com Twin artists collaborate to create truly original fiber art that expands the definition of painting.  Thru the winter months, the Lubbesmeyers will create small works depicting Oregon landscapes, New York City views, and the cityscapes and farmlands of Italy.  The Lubbesmeyers will create work in these subjects, adding new fiber paintings to the exhibit as they complete them at their studio.

Mockingbird Gallery 869 NW Wall St, 541-388-2107, www.mockingbird-gallery.com.  Here and There, a Two-Person Show features new works by Lorenzo Chavez and Ken Roth.  First Friday hear jazz music performed by Rich Hurdle and Friends.  Wine from Merrill Cellars will be featured.
Chavez is from New Mexico where he enjoys a connection with the colorful and historic Southwest and its striking landscapes.  He graduated with honors from the Colorado Institute of Art.  Intensive private study of Impressionism as well as 19th century American and Russian painters has made him aware of the wonderful possibilities of painting from life.  Lorenzo’s work in both pastel and oil is devoted to plein air landscapes with an emphasis on the American West.  Common themes include a snow covered meadow, a stand of trees along a fence line, a lazy bend in a mountain stream or a path and shadows cast by rocky cliffs in the desert.
Roth is an oil painter whose works are inspired by the beauty of nature.  Nature is a point of departure and inspiration.  He paints plein air landscapes by gathering information and capturing the moment and the energy of the outdoors.  The temperature of the light influences the paint colors he chooses.  Back in the studio Ken allows the surface of the paint to work with his imagination.  He concentrates on “the life of the paint.”  

The Nature of Words (NOW) 224 NW Oregon Ave. www.thenatureofwords.org, 541-647-2233. Featuring poet and artist Lisa Pounders, followed by a production of Painted Closet, an original one-act play written and produced by NOW’s Storefront Project. Includes a reading by Pounders from her chapbook, tentatively titled Songs of Alone at 6:30pm, After the reception, Painted Closet, a play about bullying, prejudice and pressure to fit in, will begin at 8:30pm at Cascades Theatrical Company, 148 NW Greenwood, Bend. The play is directed by Derek Sitter of Volcanic Theatre, who led The Storefront Project students’ playwriting workshop.

Oxford Hotel 10 NW Minnesota, VISIONS OF HOPE, paintings and drawings sold to benefit orphans in the Otino Waa Children’s Village established by Bob and Carol Higgins of Bend in northern Uganda.
The Higgins, retired Bend school teachers, attended a 1999 conference in Uganda on a trip that rocked their world.  Now for 11 years, they have worked to build Otino Waa, more like a village than an orphanage, with small houses for eight children and local widows serving as house mothers.  Presently 260 children live in the village funded entirely from private donations by generous Americans; the children attend primary, secondary and vocational school, gaining a general education and job skills.
Among the benefactors are inmates of the Snake River Correctional Institution of northeastern Oregon who, during a prison chapel service, heard the heart-breaking stories of the orphans, some forced into service as child soldiers and rebel’s “wives” or with parents lost to AIDS and other tragic circumstances.  The inmates proposed to officials that they create works of art to be sold to benefit the children.
The art on display at the Oxford Hotel is artwork from the Snake River institution.  The inmates, some of whom will never be released, say the payback is a sense of purpose they have not felt in years.  Thus art helps to heal not only children in Uganda but also serves incarcerated men in Oregon.  All sales solely benefit Otino Waa and it’s children.  
The Oxford generously serves wine and refreshments. Billye Turner, art consultant, provides additional information at 541-382-9398.   

QuiltWorks 926 NE Greenwood Ave. 541-728-0527, The entire gallery will be filled with quilts from the Deschutes County Library’s “Novel Idea” program. The selected novel for 2012 is Rules of Civility. There will be about 40 quilts based on the novel and the quilters will be honored during the reception.

Red Chair Gallery 103 NW Oregon Ave. in the historic O’Kane Building, 541-306-3176. Emerging Artists: Red Chair has offered the local high school artists the opportunity to sell their artwork through the Gallery as temporary members.  The gallery’s goal was to give the students a “real world” art experience.  Bend and Mountain View High Schools and Sisters High School will have various student working showing and available for purchase.  Jesse Lockwood of Bend High School, Shannon Carroll from Mountain View and Bethany Gunnarson of Sisters High have all been critical components in putting this show together.  The show kicks off on April 6th with a private Artist Reception from 4-5pm, where the students can invite friends and family for a preview. 

Sage Custom Framing & Gallery Exhibits 834 NW Brooks St., 541-382-5884. Nancy Misek – pastel landscapes.  “I paint for the beauty of the landscape. I try to convey the aspects of the landscape that caught my attention and hopefully I can give the viewer a sense of what it was like to be there.  My objective is to make the viewer feel what I have felt,” says Misek.  The love of her subject, the Central Oregon Landscape, definitely comes through to the viewer in her vibrant and richly colored pastel landscapes.  Through many plein air studies done on location, Nancy has developed an intimate knowledge of her favorite sites.

Thump Coffee 25 NW Minnesota, 541-388-0226, www.ThumpCoffee.com. Local artists Audrey Colker and her husband, Robert Johans, share the bill this month at Thump Coffee with an exhibition of Colker’s encaustic paintings and Johans’ multimedia works on display.
Colker says she approached these encaustic paintings as a process of layering: “Molten wax and pigment are laid down, layer after layer in an additive/subtractive manner. What happens after the paint is applied, then heated, scribed, scraped off or re-layered, is where each piece evolves into the illusory properties of texture, color, light and space. Decisions are made, problems solved and transformations occur that cannot be planned. That is where the fun begins.”
Johans explains that his most recent compositions are “physical as well as visual — presenting multiple focal planes of deliberately manipulated elements, requiring that the concept and context be considered within three dimensions. Though each composition relies upon the formalized structure of the frame, the imagery is not restricted by its parameters. These compositions not only contain objects, textures and colors, but also reference, notion and interpretation— and, I think, a little whimsy.”

Townshend’s Bend Teahouse 835 NW Bond Street, 541-312-2001. Photography and Mixed Media by Hannah Keller, a native of Alaska now makes her home in Bend.  Forever a student and teacher, Keller’s livelihood and personal pursuits inspire and influence her artworks. An enthusiast, Keller feels that life is a gift, a journey that has only just begun to unfold. Having spent 5 years rehabilitating, training, and photographing Bald Eagles in Alaska, her exhibition Take Flight demonstrates her joie de vivre.

Tumalo Art Company at Old Mill District, 450 SW Powerhouse Dr. #407, 541-385-9144, www.tumaloartco.com.  Susan Luckey Higdon and Danae Bennett Miller present Natura. Both artists draw their inspiration and subjects from nature.
Bennett Miller’s sculptures adorn several public spaces in Bend. Her distinctive method of flowing wax into shapes that then are formed into animals creates forms that “utilize the negative space around the forms and between them,” according to Miller. She has found printmaking to be a good avenue to utilize her love of drawing and expression. Her monoprints show exquisite use of line and color. Embossing and shaping paper over forms she creates add to the sculptural effects of this 2D process.
Luckey Higdon is well-known for her soft pastel landscapes, including fish and birds in their environments and has recently been involved in a series of acrylic canvases exploring the chaos and patterns of nature. “It’s challenging to look into a scene of branches and light, or the waters reflections with fish moving beneath and describe that mystery,” she says.